It is common to provide shelving fabricated from sheet metal. Typically, support posts are provided at the corners of the shelving, and such posts are also commonly fabricated from sheet metal.
In order to reduce the cost of such shelving, some manufacturers attempt to minimize the thickness of the sheet metal that is used. However, to the extent that the sheet metal thickness is reduced, the rigidity and load-carrying capacity of the shelving may be undesirably reduced. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved post construction that would accommodate the use of thinner sheet metal while still providing sufficient rigidity and load-carrying capability.
On thin sheet metal post structures, the edges of the sheet metal may define sharp edges which might be bothersome to a person who is handling the shelving or who accidentally brushes up against the shelving. Thus, it would be desirable to provide an improved shelving support post in which such thin edges are minimized if not eliminated.
Some shelving products are typically provided to a user in a package of disassembled pieces. The pieces are designed and fabricated for ease of customer assembly. With such "knock-down" type shelving, it would be desirable to provide a design in which the lengths of the shelving support post could be reduced so as to accommodate smaller packaging. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide means for connecting smaller lengths of posts together to form a longer column.
It would also be advantageous if such an improved post construction accommodated the creation of a substantially rigid connection between two shorter length posts.
Further, it would be beneficial if the improved post structure was relatively easily and readily assembled by the user.
Finally, it would be advantageous if the means for connecting the shorter length posts were relatively simple to fabricate and had a relatively low manufacturing cost.